The Endless Road
by EternalEccentric
Summary: Formerly "Supernatural Song Sessions". Polished and redone, a set of drabbles set to various songs. 99.8% pure brotherly angst. Read, rejoice, and reveiw at will.
1. The Little Things Give You Away

**A/N: As it said in the story summary thing this is basically a redo of "Supernatural Song Sessions", which was the first story I ever put on the site...It's definitely been awhile. I've added a little to this part, shaved some away, shined it obsessivly with Pledge and, here it is, maybe better than before :S**

**I should be able to finish re-doing the entire story today, excluding any unforseen power-outages, hopefully you all enjoy.**

Read, rejoice, reveiw if you wish,  
Jess

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* * *

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**Song: Title: The Little Things Give You Away  
****Band: Linkin Park**

* * *

Dean's not yelling.

In a sick kind of way Sam wishes he would, instead of sending him those worried little disapproving glances, anger mixed with worry, suspicion swirling with fear. Wishes Dean would just come out and shout, kick him out of the car, throw a punch, _anything._

They spend the ride back to the hotel in silence, Dean with his glances and quiet disapproval, Sam slumped in he passenger seat, the expressionless mask he perfected so well while Dean was in hell firmly in place, reflecting back at him as he stares blankly out the window, eyes tracing the drops of water that fall and stream against it without truly seeing them.

Having Dean back from hell shouldn't hurt this bad for either of them. Dean's _back_, pulled from the pit by God's warriors, by _Angels, _they should be celebrating, be joking and sniping at each other like the brothers they are. Instead they share this uneasy quiet, both itching to say something, to see if the other feels as uncomfortable.

When the quiet gets to loud Dean reaches out, blindly jams one of the cassettes into the deck, cranks the volume as loud as it'll reach in a vain attempt at normalcy. Sam twitches, eyes traveling halfway across the space separating them before snapping back to the window.

Neither of them speak.


	2. Changes

**Song: Changes**  
**Band: 3 Doors Down**

Sam's been curled inward on the slick tile of the bathroom floor for fifteen minutes and seventeen seconds-eighteen, after-images of another vision seared behind his eyes, head throbbing as his muscles cramp from the uncomfortable position.

There's something sliding on his face -possibly blood, hopefully tears- as he slowly rolls on his back, half-heartedly trying to focus on the mold crawling across the corners of the ceiling. He'd give anything to wash himself of these visions, _"The Shining"_ his brother jokingly refers to it as, humor a thin veil worn to hide the mistrust and fear that flickers behind Dean's eyes and tears into Sam's heart every time he reaches for the aspirin.

Pushing back the urge to curl back up and allow himself to drift from consciousness, Sam drags himself back to his feet, reaching sluggishly for the prescription strength pill bottle he's taken to carrying everywhere with him, thanking whatever beings that might be watching that Dean's taken extra-long on his breakfast run and steadfastly ignoring his own reflection as he swallows the pills and continues dressing.

Thirty minutes later he's back on his computer, burying himself in ancient texts and ready to pretend everything's okay, for Dean's sake more than his own. He hears his brother pause in the doorway, knows he's being observed and tenses, sure that this time Dean will realize something's wrong.

"Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

Sam glances up, forces an easy grin as he stamps down on the screams still echoing in his head.

"Nothing at all."


	3. Going Under

**Song: Going Under  
****Band: Saliva**

* * *

Sam's fourteen.

Sam's fourteen and he's sitting in the back of another nameless classroom _(Advanced English III his paper says)_, in another nameless town _(Springfield, Meadowland, Shady Brook, something cheesy and Lifetime Movie-esque)_, surrounded by dozens of nameless normal people _(Thirteen of which introduced themselves and got a polite, uninterested smile in return)_, trying to think of something to write for the final essay before Winter break _("What Are Your Plans For Christmas Day in 500 words or more?")_. He learned awhile ago that there's no point in learning names. Learning names leads to leaning about lives, which leads to caring, which just adds to this hidden growing _need_ to just be like them.

He knows he can't be like them, be normal with a Dad that works a 9-to-5 job and shows up just in time for dinner prepared by a Mom who stays home and has tea at exactly 10:30 every Wednesday with the neighbor's wife, who makes sure there are snacks set out for her children when they arrive home from school. Instead he's got a Father who's, more often than not, out past midnight trying to save someone from something that wants to eat their liver, a Mother that's constructed of drunken stories and singed photos, and a Brother who hustles men twice his age and size every other night just so they can afford the tiny motel room and something from the diner down the street for dinner and, if they're lucky, something to save for Sam's lunch the next day.

It's December and Sam's in another nameless town, in another nameless classroom, surrounded by nameless kids his own age discussing their Christmas plans, what gifts their hoping for and relatives they'll see, while Sam sits quietly in his seat, wondering what his teacher would think if he wrote the truth and wishing for the normal things he'll never have.


	4. Fade To Black

**Song: Fade To Black  
****Band: Metallica**

* * *

The war's over.

_The_ War, The Apocalypse that had boiled down to six long years of relentless _fightrunhidelivetofightagain _over in one huge bang, Sam prone at the epicenter with Lucifer and Lilith and countless of vessels-both angelic and demonic- spread around him.

Sam drags in another shaky breath, blinking slowly at the thin sliver of blue sky that shows past the clouds and smoke, feeling his body shut down as his thought's skip and jump like Dean's older cassettes.

_Dean. _

He wonders what Dean will think when he finds this place. Will Dean be proud of him, of Sam finally putting an end to all the crap he's started, or will he be more pissed off by the fact that it took Sam this long? Will Dean convince one of the few remaining Demons to make another deal or will he finally move on, join Lisa and Ben like they'd asked him to a few months ago? Will they both finally be free?

A faint swishing sound alerts him of someone's, or something's, arrival but Sam can't force himself to care anymore, and even if he could the slowing flow of blood from his chest warns him that he won't be able to defend himself if the new arrival is an enemy.

He lets his eyes drift back towards the widening strip of blue, mind conjuring an image of his Father…his Mom, smiles wide and proud, arms welcoming him home.

Castiel approaches Sam slowly, mind wondering at the sight. This one human, one small piece in a chess match with millions of pawns, who managed to repeatedly defy the plans fate had set him before Creation began, who fought only for his own race, for his brother.

Sam was not meant to do this job, this task was one set for Dean, and only Dean, to complete. Dean who was just starting the slow climb back to consciousness in the shelter of the panic room that had once belonged to Bobby Singer, surrounded by countless sigils designed to keep both Angels and Demons from entering until Sam died.

He crouches by Sam, who's eyes rest on him for only the barest of a second, glazed with blood loss and the sheer toll the battle took on his mortal body, before they flicker back up towards the sky, light fading from them even as he watches, a small grateful smile morphing his features as his soul slipped away.


	5. Breaking The Habit

**A/N: Longer_ AND_ angstier than the original, GO ME!  
Italics are events, normal font what Sam is thinking.**

**Song: Breaking The Habit  
****Band: Linkin Park**

* * *

There are things about other that Sam knows are wrong, like Angel's raising Dean and leaving him alone to face the memories of Hell and the demons they're facing all too literally now.

_There's no recognition in Sam's eyes when Dean checks in on him after they've locked him to the bed. Just desperate fear and pain as muscles clench and seize, unintelligible words slipping past the belt that keeps Sam from hurting himself too much. Dean leave but can't force himself to walk away. He sits at the bottom of the stairs, flinches every time Sam draws enough breath to scream._

There are also things about himself that Sam knows are wrong, like the Demon-Blood Azazel put in him when he was a baby, the stuff he's been adding to more and more frequently since Dean slipped and fell into Hell. He doesn't need Dean, or Bobby or Chuck _(or his parents, his younger self, Jess) _to tell him this. He's known since the beginning that Ruby wasn't helping him out of whatever shred of goodness that could possibly exist in the black, shriveled, remains of her heart but by the time he noticed her smirks and the way she was oh-so _willing _to come wherever he needed her, regardless of the time, and pass the knife, it was too late. He's addicted now and he knows it. Knows it like he knows the Angel's are wrong and he's wrong and the only right thing in the world right now is Dean.

_Sam's eyes roll back as he seizes again, voice shredded as he screams for someone, anyone, to help, tapering off into a ragged sob. His entire body arching off the too-small cot as the walls groan under the pressure his out of control powers force against them._

Dean helped for awhile, made it easier to turn Ruby away, gave him a reason to brush up on his physical fighting skills but the need, the urge, to use his powers again grew every time they walked away from a body, from somebody he could've saved with them.

_Dean moves closer as the twenty-second hour starts, sits with his back to the Panic Room's door, listening to the hinges creak and Sam's ragged pleas, a dark corner of his brain begging for Sam to just stop, just give up already, neither of them need to do this. Inside the room another Dean prowls around Sam, spitting facts sharp enough in their truth to bite into Sam's heart and bleed_

Sam's weak, flawed in so many ways he refused to see until it was six steps beyond the point of no return. Refused to acknowledge until the abscene of her blood left his strung-out and jittery, feeling as though he was just barely balanced between sanity and tipping too far over, and she realized it was so much better for her to prove that he needed her and not the other way around.

_Dean is Dad, is Mom, jessmadisonbobbybeckychuck. Dean is countless victims, every single one asking "Why?" _

Dean's questioning, and later accusing, glances and questions let Sam know he knew something was wrong but it wasn't something he would've been able to help with, something Sam never wanted him to know and now an innocent lady's dead and the Angel's know his secret, now everybody knows.

Dean and Bobby will never be able to look at him again. He needs to get away.

_Outside the twenty-third hour starts and Dean finally walks away for a moment. Castiel does as he is ordered. Sam is free._


	6. The Beginning Of The End

**Song: The Beginning Of The End  
****Band: Nine Inch Nails **

* * *

Dean is dead. He's dead and buried in the middle of the woods, in a beyond simple pine box, place marked by two leftover boards held together with a spare nail and length of chain that had been left under the passenger seat of the car. Nothing too fancy, too _"Hey I'm here!", _just what Dean would want as far as Sam thinks. Personally Bobby's belief is that Dean would've preferred a cremation, a true Hunter's send-off, but he hadn't been able to meet Sam's devastated, shock-glazed, eyes and bring the thought up.

He's regretting that moment now though. Now he's knows that Sam's using the fact that they left Dean's body as a sign to keep searching for a way to bring him back, and Dean's not there to convince Sam to slow down, to eat or drink or, god forbid, put down the bottle for five minutes and take a shower. Now Bobby's figured out that suggesting any off these things gets a put-upon sigh and, if he's lucky with the final one, an affronted glare before Sam leaves, returns two minutes later with barely damp hair and a sandwich that'll be thrown in the trash the minute he thinks Bobby's not looking.

He's standing in the doorway to what was once upon a time _his_ library, torn between pity and exasperation as Sam glares at him again. Normally he'd walk away at this point, go into the kitchen and pointedly slam the dishes around until Sam dragged himself out to ask for quiet but he's been watching Sam drink himself stupid for three weeks now and, in all honesty, that glare would be a little more intimidating if Sam's eyes would actually focus.

Five minutes later Sam slumps down, face plants himself in the middle of one of the older and more expensive tomes in this particular collection and Bobby sighs, pulls the bottle from Sam's limp grasp and makes sure the boy's still breathing before hefting him over to the couch and draping one of the spare blankets over him, before trudging upstairs and collapsing into his own bed.

Five hours later he wakes to a suspicious absence of noise and almost breaks his neck trying to run down the stairs, mind filled with the images of Sam dead from alcohol poisoning or choking on his own puke and unable to wake up. Instead he finds the blanket crumpled between the library and the living room, a sloppy note taped to his desk, the tome Sam had been struggling through the night before absent with the Impala and Sam himself.

He spends the next week and a half waiting for Sam to show up on his front porch, twitchy and ashamed behind a miraculously alive Dean but the only sign of Sam's existence is a sudden, bloody path being cut through the Demonic race, a sign that practically screams "Come get me!" to the higher levels while remaining untraceable to the humans.

Three months later Dean does show up, the Impala's engine loud enough that Bobby's waiting on the porch before it's even in sight, but Dean's just as confused as Bobby, has no recollection of Hell or what got him out and there's no Sam. Bobby finds the note again and passes it over, watches the worry and barely hidden fear flood across Dean's face as he jumps up, note falling forgotten to the floor as he follows Dean back outside.

_I got it, I know how to get him out.  
__I've got to do this, don't follow me._

_Tell Dean I'm sorry. _


	7. Stand My Ground

**Song: Stand My Ground  
****Band: Within Temptation**

* * *

When Dean first told him Dad's secret it nearly tore Sam apart. He could feel it, the words punching into him like they were shot out of The Colt that Dean had treasured and that bitch Bela had stolen, words chasing each other around his head, crashing into each other like that semi smashing in the car, the accident that had caused the first deal, _"Dad said I might have to kill you," _stuck on endless loop around the edges of his brain.

He remembers staring into the mirror for hours later that same night, looking for that clue, that thing that made his own Father think he needed to be put down like a rabid dog. He remembers sneaking out, hearing Gordon call him freak, _monster_, and not being able to think of anything to counter it with. There are hazy memories of forcing Dean to look him in the eyes and promise that he'd do it if he had to, if there was no other choice, before letting himself sink into alcohol induced self-pity. The fear that had nearly broken him when that nurse had tried to infect him with the Demonic virus that had only grown stronger when it had no effect.

Dean was a distraction during the last year, Sam not able to think about his own issues around the Deal. Only now Dean's dead and he can't stay with Bobby anymore and see the pity in the older man eyes. The only thing he's got left is the car and a old book that offers the barest hints on how to summon a spirit back from the pit. Now he's got way to much time to remember and ponder, the radio only goes so loud and Sam's had too much practice turning the music out.

He imagines the blood like a mold growing over his soul everyday that he lets Dean stay in Hell, one of those types that keeps coming back no matter how many times he tries to hose it out. Trying to overrun his human side, the power that it offers whispering it's seductive song in the back of his mind, strongest when he's trying to deliberately ignore the memories of Dean and fall asleep for a few hours so he can drive without the fear of wrecking the car and landing himself in a hospital where Bobby can find him and try to make him stop.

In his weakest moments he tries to imagine what everybody's reactions would be, how the disappointment would look painted on the faces of his Father, His Mother, and Brother, and friends. He remembers the last words Dean had spoken to him before the Hellhounds started tearing into him, uses them to drown out the Demon's taunts about how far from human he's straying and the not-quite trustworthy glances the other Hunters he occasionally runs into give him. He tells himself the Demon-Blood's temporary, that he's got it controlled and it's all to a better goal, a end to fit the means.

He remembers _"You keep fighting Sammy", _and Sam swears he will, no matter what he has to do to get Dean back he will keep going.


	8. The Kill

**Song: The Kill  
****Band: 30 seconds To Mars**

* * *

Dean watches Sam as they enter the night's motel room, tries to scrape together enough emotion to worry at the defeat emanating off of his brother, the exhausted slump of his shoulders and the deep purple rings that seem to have set up permanent base under his eyes as they skitter across his own before Sam turns away and enters the bathroom. The soft click of the lock turning echoes like a gunshot, unbearably loud in the silence that exists where there used to be easy banter and bathroom doors purposefully let slightly open.

He doesn't know how much longer he can take this, this _thing_ that's eroded through the bond he used to have with Sam and eats at them both in the all-too-quiet moments between hunts and sleep. He tries to keep up with his former devil-may-care attitude during their hunts, tries to play the big brother role he perfected when he was six but…it's hard. It's hard to pretend that he cares about the waitresses coy glances or the fact that "Lost" has _another _season no one understands when the weight of the world feels like it's sitting on his back.

Forty-years didn't take all of his brotherly instincts though. He can tell Sam's struggling too, sees it in the fine tremor of his hands after a night of not sleeping, the way his normal empathy for the victims of whatever monster or, more recently, Demon of the week is now slightly forced, and the resignation that shadows the pain in Sam's eyes when they get there too late.

He sees the strain in them both physically in the way old ladies and waitresses used to fawn over them both for being so handsome, giggles behind cupped hands and shy glances as numbers are slipped into hands on receipts, has morphed into whispers of "those poor boys, too young to be fighting a war" and barely hidden pity in the looks that come with their meals.

He wants to suggest they take a break, wants to so bad it burns on his tongue every time their eyes meet, just go rent a cabin somewhere in the mountains and enjoy the peace, the quiet and solitude for a week but he knows Sam would refuse, just like he would've before Hell, before Angels, and The Apocalypse and _this is all your fault _etched in the eyes of cooling corpses_. _So Dean sighs and peels himself out of his clothes, ignores how the echo of the water from the shower is caused by it hitting an empty tub rather than a human body, drops into the bed closest to the door and wonders what it'd be like if it all just suddenly ended. If he left and told the Angels and their "God" to choose someone else to save the fucking planet, he and his brother are finished, end of story.

He wonders if Sam would agree with him to just let it all burn down and dreams, just for a few hours, of being a family again, rather than two shadows of men forced to fix the world they broke together.


	9. 1,000 Good Intentions

**A/N: Draw your own opinons on this one, it's left open to reader imagination for a reason. Also, I think this is the most dialogue I've ever written. *snarls at chapter* It's freaking HARD to write good dialogue D:**

**SONG: 1000 Good Intentions  
****BAND: Rise Against**

* * *

The man walked into the room slowly, absorbed in the large, arcane, text held secure between his chest and left arm, the other loosely grasping, what would look to an outsider as an antique sort-of gun.

"Been a while hasn't it?" a voice called from the center of the room.

The man froze, ice seeming to bleed into his veins as the lights flickered on overhead. He blinked in the sudden harshness of the fluorescent lighting, that revealed three bodies spread across the floor around the figure in the center of the room.

"You could say that." he replied, eyes still locked on the figures on the floor " How're you doing lately Sam?"

Sam's eyebrow rose as he stared at the man, head tilted slightly to the side, " You don't really care, and their not dead, just...distracted at the moment,"

" Like the last man who got "distracted" when you came in here?" the other man growled

" Basically, how's Jarvey doing anyway, he seemed like a good man,"

" He's locked in a foam room, screaming bloody murder."

Sam seemed honestly upset for a moment, biting his lip and staring into space.

"So that's what that sound is, I should probably go apologize to his daughter f-"

" Go anywhere near his daughter and I'll kill you Sam" the other man whispered. Sam drew back, looking mildly offended.

" 'M not gonna kill her, actually that's what I came here to talk about." Sam straightened up " Where is he?"

" I can't tell you, haven't seen him in weeks,"

" Bullshit Bobby he was here last week, now where is he?"

" Why do you want to know?" Bobby stalled, hand inching now towards his flask with the holy water inside.

" You know why, now tell me where he is. I really don't want to have to pull the name out of your head Bobby, the last person I tried that on went nuts remember?"

Bobby blinked, not responding and found himself frozen against a wall, Sam all of four inches from his face.

" Okay, let me put it this way then, either you tell me where Dean is, or all those pretty little wards surrounding the daycare vanish and Lilith gets another free week of meals."

" Detroit." Bobby muttered, after a brief moment off silence. Sam smiled and began towards the door. "Why are you doing this Sam?" Sam stopped and for just a moment Bobby saw his shoulders slump, the mask slipping to reveal just how exhausted he was.

" Someone's got to stop him Bobby, if nobody else will do it I will." Sam whispered, eyes focused somewhere else.

" I suggest someone go check on Jarvey by the way, he's been quiet for the past hour."

A small whoosh echoed across the room as Sam vanished, leaving Bobby slumped against the wall, gun halfway across the room, the bullets that had been inside a fine pile of powder beside it.


End file.
